Our Joe

CONTENTS My Friend, Joe – a foreword by the author

11

1 To Russia with Love

20

2 The Milk Maid

23

3 Kitty

27

4 It’s the Ferret!

35

5 Waltons’ Piano

45

6 The Local Paper

57

7 Dark Days and The Drifters

66

8 Brendan Bowyer, Larry Gogan and Fanmania

87

9 Belvedere House and ‘Top of the Pops’

114

10 Jailhouse Rock

137

11 Joe at home with Ben and Family

158

12 The Jet-Setter

172

13 Denis Mee, the Bishop and Killarney

190

14 Thomas’s of Foxrock

201

15 Father Brian

219

16 The White Suit and the Turkey

229

17 Finbar Furey and the Final Show

243

18 The King is Dead

253

19 Rathgar to Mullingar

260

20 No Show Like a Joe Show

273

A FOREWORD BY THE AU T HOR

M Y FRIEND , JOE

E

veryone who knew or encountered Joe has a story to tell. And I’m no different. Joe Dolan was the first celebrity I ever interviewed. That

interview, conducted in the seventies, while I was still a nervous, greenhorn student, would give me a leg up the ladder in journalism and life. It helped me to land a job as a trainee reporter with the Midland Topic newspaper in Joe’s hometown of Mullingar.

Like all teenagers, at the time I was mad about performers and bands, influenced by their fashion and fascinated by their lifestyles. I was also passionate about writing and hell-bent on pursuing a career in newspapers.

Growing up on the border of Meath and Westmeath, I had pop stars virtually on my doorstep. The Swarbriggs were based in Mullingar. And the midland town was also home to Ireland’s biggest pop star … Joe Dolan. He became a pop star to me the moment I heard him singing ‘Sweet Little Rock ’n’ Roller’ on Radio Luxembourg.

Powered by youthful naïvety and enthusiasm and armed with a pen and 11

OUR JOE notebook, I set out one day to track down the great Joe for my big interview. This was a major expedition as it involved hitching a lift along lonely country roads on a fourteen-mile journey from my rural home. And I never thought for a moment that he wouldn’t be in when I eventually knocked on the door of Joe’s office in the town.

The man who answered wasn’t the smiling, moon-faced Joe of the seventies, but the genial and ultra-friendly Seamus Casey. Seamus, who had turned his back on the sedate lifestyle of a country schoolmaster for the bright lights and razzmatazz of showbusiness as Joe’s band manager, was probably bemused by the timid teenager seeking an interview, despite not being employed by any publication. The genial manager should have sent me off with my tail between my legs that day, but, as I would discover time and again through the decades, Seamus Casey is a gentleman. He arranged for me to call by another day and promised that he would have Joe waiting to chat with me at a specific time.

I was a bag of nerves meeting the great Joe Dolan on my second visit to his Mullingar headquarters. But the moment I stepped into his office, Joe was cracking jokes and had me laughing. The image of the big celebrity instantly melted from my mind and I found myself talking to a great character who put me at my ease. I came away with a wealth of stories from Joe’s life and times that afternoon, but I didn’t realise then that I had also ignited a friendship which would last four decades, right up to his passing on St Stephen’s Day, 2007.

A local newspaper proprietor and editor called Dick Hogan was impressed enough with the Joe article to later give me a job as a trainee reporter on his paper, then known as the Midland Topic. I was now on my way to a career in newspapers, thanks to Dick Hogan … and Joe. Shortly after getting a job on the paper, I was hitching a lift home one evening when a big Merc went flying past me like a jet, before suddenly breaking and creating a cloud of dust as it came to a screeching halt. As I went running towards the car, with the smell of burning rubber in the air, I realised 12

MY FRIEND, JOE that the driver was Joe Dolan. ‘How’ya, Eddie, hop in,’ Joe said with that big smile which charmed millions of fans.

On the short journey to the County Meath village of Clonard – short at the speed Joe was driving – there was no talk of hit records, sold-out shows or big TV appearances. Instead, Joe was more interested in how I was getting on at the paper. Even at that early stage of knowing him I realised there were two Joes: the incredible singer and stage performer, and, away from the spotlight, the unassuming man who just loved people and their company. When we arrived at my stop, Paddy’s pub of Clonard, Joe decided he’d drop in for a quick drink. And I grew a couple of feet taller that evening as I swanned through the door of Paddy’s with the great Joe Dolan by my side. Joe stayed for less than an hour, but in that short period he lifted the atmosphere in the bar and there was the sound of raucous laughter as he traded jokes with the locals.

It was also through Joe that I got my first sample of the big time in showbusiness when the Topic assigned me to cover one of his record-breaking ten sold-out nights at the Chariott Inn in Dublin’s Ranelagh. It was the venue where all the top international stars performed in Ireland back in the mid to late seventies. That Saturday night show had all the razzmatazz of a Las Vegas extravaganza.

Before the performance, I also got my first taste of the backstage experience when Seamus Casey ushered me to Joe’s dressing room for a brief interview with the star. I could get used to this, I thought. Joe was in great form that night, buzzing with excitement in the build up to the show that was about to unfold. He said he particularly loved performing a concert where he could fully ‘connect’ with his audience. He found shows like that the most satisfying, rather than dances where people weren’t totally focused on the band, so the singer was just performing rather than engaging with the crowd. He simply loved an interaction with people. When Joe hit the stage that night, I doubted if his own hero, Elvis Presley, had ever experienced such an outpouring of emotion from an audience. The following 13

OUR JOE week I had my first big front-page story in the Topic about Joe Dolan taking Dublin by storm. Now I had finally hit the big time as a journalist … thanks, again, to Joe. Of course, apart from my professional interest in Joe as a singing star, I was also a fan. So imagine my excitement in the late seventies when Seamus Casey rang me at the Topic one day and asked if I would be interested in writing a short biography and press release covering the latest events in Joe’s showbiz career for the Irish and international media. This involved interviewing Joe about his new recordings, tours and future plans for a news update that would be published in all kinds of newspapers and magazines. It was a huge honour for me to be given the opportunity to play that very minor role in Joe’s career at the time. For that brief period, I was on Joe’s team. It doesn’t get much better for any fan.

In my personal life, I also enjoyed many great nights of entertainment with friends at Joe’s shows in Westmeath venues like the Greville Arms Hotel in Mullingar and The Beehive near Delvin. No words can adequately describe the atmosphere and excitement that Joe generated at those home events from the mid-seventies to the early eighties. They were probably his best-ever performances and you could see that he was bursting with joy singing in front of his own people.

As life moved on, I slowly climbed the ladder in journalism to become the showbusiness editor of the Sunday World. Joe was among the first to congratulate me when I got the job, as he was a fan of the paper. I was now working with many of his own friends. His close buddy, Brian D’Arcy, was, and still is, a columnist; another long-time pal, the journalist and broadcaster Sam Smyth, was also a showbusiness and investigative reporter with the ‘World’ at the time; and photographer Val Sheehan, the man who captured Driftermania in Joe’s early days and shot the cover picture for Joe and The Drifters showband’s first album, The Answer To Everything, was the paper’s fashion photographer.

Having good contacts is the key to success in journalism, and I arrived at 14

MY FRIEND, JOE the Sunday World with great connections like Joe Dolan. Whenever I rang Joe for an interview during the good times and in his final couple of years when his health began to deteriorate, he never failed to oblige. I knew that Joe’s door was always open to me. Today, I truly appreciate the easy access I had to one of Ireland’s greatest-ever entertainers. It has given me a unique insight into the man, his life and his incredible talent as an entertainer.

Back in the late seventies I took my then teenage cousin Thomas Murphy from Dublin to see Joe playing at a dance in Mullingar’s Horizon ballroom. Thomas was instantly taken with Joe’s star quality and, of course, he was already aware of the big-time celebrity. Everybody in Ireland knew who Joe Dolan was. Thomas was also highly impressed to discover that Joe knew who I was after the star acknowledged me from the stage during the dance that night. In the strange twists and turns of life, Thomas Murphy would go on to establish his own food and wine shop in Dublin’s Foxrock, where Joe settled down in the early eighties. From that moment on, Thomas became one of Joe’s closest friends in life. After my own move to Dublin, I found myself enjoying Joe’s company at family occasions and social events organised by my cousin, Thomas, through the decades.

Joe and I never talked about showbusiness or the media on days and nights socialising at family functions or evenings out as friends. We simply traded jokes. It was all about fun and having a laugh over a few drinks, more often than not a few drinks too many! At private occasions, I saw how he managed to remain an ordinary Joe away from the stage, despite his iconic status in this country. There was nothing showbizzy about him when he was in company. He was just as happy to sit back and let the other fella tell the yarn or crack the joke. Joe never threw shapes or demanded to be the centre of attention. And that’s why people loved him and accepted him as an ordinary person who just happened to have an extraordinary talent as a singer.

I remained in close contact with Joe right to the end. In the years before his passing, we traded jokes by text on a weekly basis. While I was 15

OUR JOE personally in touch with Joe throughout his illness, it wasn’t until the final couple of weeks that I realised my friend might not survive it. Whether he was in denial or just painting a positive picture for family and friends, Joe never indicated to me, or indeed to any of his close family and associates, that he was knocking on death’s door. I knew it was coming on St Stephen’s Day, 2007, but when Thomas Murphy phoned me from the hospital with the sad news, it felt like a death in the family. I suspect it was the same in most homes throughout the country. The thought of an Ireland and an entertainment scene without Joe Dolan was just so hard to accept.

It was also difficult to believe that my life with Joe had come full circle. I had taken my baby steps into the world of journalism by doing my first celebrity interview with Mullingar’s favourite son after he had obviously decided to give a kid a break on that autumn day in the seventies. But I never thought then that I would one day be reporting on his funeral for the Sunday World. And what a funeral it was. Simply magnificent. Just like the man himself.

Over the years I have written books with some of Ireland’s most successful stars, including Daniel O’Donnell, Boyzone, Ronan Keating, Westlife and the singers on one of Ireland’s biggest-selling albums, A Woman’s Heart.

Now I am privileged to produce a book on my friend, Joe Dolan, or ‘Our Joe’ as the fans call him. Although tinged with sadness, it has been a labour of love. Joe’s story is a remarkable one, a classic rags-to-riches tale of a poor country boy who became a pop superstar in the sixties and seventies and who had an enduring appeal over an incredible five decades.

Joe’s early life and career in this book and that of his family is recreated mainly through the recollections of his heart-broken brother, Ben, who gave generously of his time as he relived his childhood and adult life with Joe, and their glory days on the stage together. During one of the many interviews Ben recorded for this book, he took me on a drive in his sleek Mercedes around the neighbourhood of Grange, in the countryside on the 16

MY FRIEND, JOE outskirts of Mullingar, where he and Joe grew up.

We stopped outside the modest cottage where the Dolan children were reared by parents, Paddy and Ellen, and the myriad of memories from his childhood came flooding back to Ben. This was the cottage where the Dolan brothers’ love of music was nurtured by their mother. Ben pointed out a modern housing estate across the road. It was once a field owned by local farmer Johnny Weldon and there the Dolan boys helped out with the sowing and picking of potatoes and other crops as they grew up.

Then we drove down a country road until we reached the spot where the family spent summers working in the bog, cutting turf for the winter fuel.

There were fields where rabbits were shot and the local Lough Ennell where the Dolan boys and their friends swam and went fishing. Times were harsh, but as Ben recalls, there were fun times too and Joe was always in the middle of them.

Another time we stopped off at the County Hall in Mullingar (now the Arts Centre) where we met up with the eldest Dolan brother, Paddy, who shared his own memories of growing up with Joe. In the sixties, Paddy ran the cloakroom at dances in the County Hall (taking care of thousands of coats was big business in those days). Paddy recalled with obvious pride how his young brother, Joe, went on to be the biggest star to perform in the venue.

Over gallons of tea at Mullingar House, the pub which Joe co-owned with Ben, their lifetime manager Seamus Casey, now in his seventies, strolled through times past as Joe’s lifetime manager. He recalled the fun, paranoia, foibles and talent of the man he loved.

While working together in Dublin and on assignments around the country, photographer Val Sheehan of the Sunday World took me on many a journey through the days when he was on the frontline of Driftermania, capturing the wild scenes that greeted Joe and the band in ballrooms around the country during the sixties. Val worked closely with Joe as The Drifters’ photographer in those early days and he gave me a fascinating insight into 17

OUR JOE how fame turned the heart-throb’s life upside down in those days.

Joe’s nephews, Adrian and Ray Dolan, grew up with their uncle who lived between their home and his Mullingar apartment in the sixties and seventies. Later, in the eighties, they would join Joe’s backing band and perform with him until his final show. Adrian and Ray shared their personal memories of Uncle Joe, shining a light on the life of the man inside his family.

My long-time friend Larry Gogan, the legendary and much-loved RTÉ radio personality, met Joe at the very start of his career, following the release of The Drifters’ first single, ‘The Answer To Everything’. In a studio of RTÉ 2fm Radio, where today Larry is still one of the most popular DJs in the country, the broadcaster revealed how they became friends, his wife Florrie’s fascination with the singer and Joe’s kindness in his darkest hour.

The singer Finbar Furey was just a teenager when he first met Joe in Mullingar, while competing in the All-Ireland Championships, playing the uileann pipes. They both had mutual friends in the Westmeath town and there was an instant rapport between the pair. At his home, Finbar told me about his days carousing with Joe ‘on the tear’ in the Dublin mountains.

Showband star Brendan Bowyer was a big influence on Joe in the early days and the two showband legends became buddies out of the spotlight.

Still performing all over Ireland, Brendan sat in his dressing room at The Helix in Dublin, sharing memories of his pal Joe, including their highjinks in Las Vegas.

Journalist and radio presenter Sam Smyth started his working life as a ballroom promoter in his teens. He was a huge fan of Joe Dolan and, like many, felt honoured to be a personal friend of the entertainer. Sam took time out from his work reporting on the politics of the day from inside Dail Éireann to chat in the olde-worlde Buswells Hotel about the Joe he knew and loved. He revealed his many nights socialising with Joe in the singer’s hometown of Mullingar where he was introduced to the B-Specials.

Two of Ireland’s favourite female radio broadcasters, Maxi and Brenda 18

MY FRIEND, JOE Donohue of RTÉ, were among the millions of women who fell under Joe’s spell and they opened their hearts about the remarkable man they knew and loved.

While researching the book, I was amazed to discover the network of people from all walks of life who were connected in one way or another to Joe, everyone from Tom Jones to Gay Byrne, Robbie Williams to Phil Coulter and Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary to a former Mayor of Galway. He even struck up a friendship with a turkey! Their stories, and the stories of ordinary folk whose lives he touched paint a picture of a man who came from a humble background, worked hard, played hard, was generous to a fault with his time and money and lit up the world.

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